By: Nomi Kaltmann as seen in Ha’aretz

30 April 2025

Ralph Genende, a Melbourne-based Orthodox rabbi, has been involved in interfaith work for more than three decades. A former president of the Jewish Christian Muslim Association of Australia, he resigned soon after October 7, 2023, deeply troubled by the lack of response of his non-Jewish colleagues to the Hamas massacre, in which 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were murdered.

In his letter of resignation, he cited the organization’s “lack of moral clarity and moral courage.” The JCMA folded soon thereafter, as did many other Jewish-Muslim partnership-building initiatives across Australia.

But in recent months, Genende has been participating in a private dialogue group with Muslim and Christian clergy, in an effort to rebuild bridges.

“October 7 has changed everything and demands a paradigm shift from both Jews and Muslims,” he says.

Moving forward, he says, Jews and Muslims need to explore “just how we are talking about each other in our homes, schools and places of worship. It’s about learning about the texts that we hold dear and the toxic texts that separate us, about the primacy of Zionism for Jewish identity in Australia and about how antisemitism is prevalent in some Muslim circles.”

In Sydney, the Together for Humanity Foundation, an interfaith educational organization, has been more successful in sustaining its relationships since October 7. Dean and founder Rabbi Zalman Kastel, who has been working alongside Muslims for more than 20 years, says that despite some tensions that erupted immediately after the war began, the foundation’s intercultural work has persisted.

“The program was delivered by a woman in a hijab next to a young man in a kippah and a Cambodian son of a refugee,” Kastel reports. “The mixed group led youth in games and story sharing that led them to think about the ways we can misunderstand people, the impacts of casual racism including jokes and banter, antisemitism, xenophobia, insensitivity and Islamophobia.”

But not all interfaith work is seeing a return to the days that preceded October 7.

Jenny Better, a retired school teacher from Melbourne, was engaged for many years in Jewish-Muslim partnership initiatives, among them a program that brought Jewish and Muslim children together for dialogue sessions in local museums affiliated with their respective communities. She also served as a Jewish representative on the boards of several interfaith organizations. In the past year-and-a-half, however, she has completely disengaged.

“After October 7, I changed my worldview,” she says. “I had always believed education and communication were the keys. But now I think this is beyond that. The antisemitism, the silence of important organizations, and the fuzzing of the lines between Jews, Israel and Zionism – it’s just devastating.”

Despite stepping back, she has no regrets investing so much of her time and energy over the years building understanding with Muslims. “On a personal level, you have to take certain journeys, even if they aren’t successful,” she says.

— Nomi Kaltmann